My Tenth Grade Science Experiment

When I was in tenth grade, I had a science experiment to do and I was running very short on time. It was due in a couple days and I had only barely started on my experiment. I decided to do an experiment involving “rust” and the rusting process, and how some elements can accelerate the rusting process while others tend to impede or decelerate it.

Anyway, I had one final experiment to do — to test the rust-inhibiting or accelerating effect on metal of boiled linseed oil. I had never heard of linseed oil (I was just reading from a book of high school science projects and one of them was about rust). So I made sure to precisely follow the experiment’s procedures as set forth in the book. One of the elements it suggested using to test the rusting process was “boiled linseed oil.”  So I went to whatever store sells linseed oil and came home and began the experiment at about 4:30pm. I should note at this point that my father, for reasons still unknown to me, chose this day of all days to come home at 5pm rather than his usual 6:30pm. The relevance of this point will become clear in a couple paragraphs, so be patient.

I followed the book’s instructions to a T: “Immerse the metal rods in boiled linseed oil….” Being genetically engineered from nine months prior to my birth to be a male of our species, I knew that reading the warning labels on a can of linseed oil was for sissies. Real men would no more read the warning label on a can of an element they have never heard of than ask for directions from a gas station attendant. Men just don’t do such things. My brilliant, highly intuitive mind quickly deduced that in order to make this experiment work, you need to “boil” the linseed oil, just as the book stated. How hard can that be? The book clearly said to immerse the metal rods in “boiled linseed oil.”

Now here is a handy tip for future reference: Read the instructions on the can of linseed oil before you begin to boil it –whether you are a male or female. And here is the funny thing, I didn’t know it at the time, but linseed oil actually comes boiled already. Well, how about that! Imagine my surprise when after the flames erupted to a level of 8 feet I subsequently discovered that 1) not only did the can actually say that it contained “boiled linseed oil” right there on the can, but also 2) that under the instructions on the back side of the can, it says “WARNING: Highly combustible if exposed to intense heat. Keep away from all heating appliances, including stoves, ovens,…. blah blah blah,” who reads this crap, anyway. Certainly not this mad scientist.

  Well, here is the fascinating part. You would think that a spiraling, spitting, flaming cauldron of uncontrolled boiling boiled linseed oil would be about as bad as it could get. Well, my dear friend, if you surmised that, your surmission (new word) would be wrong. For there is one thing worse than a spiraling, spitting, flaming cauldron of uncontrolled boiling boiled linseed oil. And that would this very same element immediately AFTER you tried to put the flames out with a bucket of water.

Apparently — and this is the part I did not know at that point in my educational development — different types of flames require different types of extinguishment (another new word?). Did you know that not all flames take kindly to having water doused on them?  Neither did I! Well, I am happy to say that the flames all went out in an instant. For full disclosure, however, I must also report that in that same instant the entire room turned into a black sea of smoke and soot. I could not see three feet in front of me. Yes, in a flash — roughly coincident in time with the contact of water on the boiling boiled linseed oil — the entire room, floor to ceiling was consumed by an instant cloud of thick black smoke. It was not until hours later that I was able to actually read the rest of the warning label about “in the event of fire, do not apply water…. blah blah blah….”. 

I opened up all the windows (after having to grope just to know which direction the windows were from my position in the room.) After about 25 minutes most of the smoke had dispersed, providing me a very clear view of the blackened walls, floor, and best of all, the ten foot ceiling, appearing as if someone had painted the room “Midnight black” with one wave of a magic wand. Now please refer back to the part about my father’s unusually early surprise return home that day. That happened right about now. 

I would prefer not to dive deeply at this point into the nature of my father’s rather pronounced and singularly unsubtle response. Suffice to say that he is prone to over-reaction in the best of situations, and this was certainly not one of those “best situations.” He flipped out on a prior occasion when I had returned a tape dispenser to the wrong drawer (true!) so perhaps you can use that reaction as an approximate benchmark to project his level of response in this somewhat more catastrophic situation. Now take the level of rage that you came up with in your mind and now multiply it by about 342. And you would be in the general vicinity of envisioning how pleased and  impressed he was by my scientific discoveries at the expense of his kitchen walls and ceiling. I vaguely recall something about being told that I would be “cleaning up every square inch of this room with a toothbrush” and being grounded until the next visit of Halley’s Comet. 

So there are several important things to take from this experience: 1) Linseed oil comes pre-boiled; 2) when you choose to ignore lesson #1 and boil the boiled linseed oil anyway, never use water to put out the flames and 3) if you choose to ignore lessons 1 and 2 above, at least be sure you have a father who really has a strong appreciation for black as an interior decorating color for walls and ceiling. But there is one lesson that to this day I never was able to find out: whether boiled linseed oil was in fact a rust inhibiter or rust accelerator. I guess there are some mysteries in life that we will simply have to accept we will never know the answers to, and for me, this is one of them.

(Footnote: photos are not actual images of our kitchen. Actual results were much worse :   )